


Moratorium Emoist Syndrome

by enmity



Category: Shin Megami Tensei Series, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne
Genre: F/M, Gen, i'm not tagging the ships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: So basically: this sucks.





	Moratorium Emoist Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not sure how much credibility tvtropes has but
>
>> \- ... a Dummied Out scene when, at Kabukicho Prison, [Isamu] studies the Amala Drum in his cell and catches a message from Yuko to the Demi-Fiend, asking to be rescued from her imprisonment at the Obelisk. 
> 
>   
> i went looking for this but can't find it gfhfgfg anyway i killed two birds w/ one stone writing this so all's well, ha ha 

So a guy wakes up in a jail cell. Again. Right after he got out of the other one – and if he’s kind of forgotten what it’s like to find things funny anymore, you can’t really blame him, because the room stinks and he hasn’t showered in what’s probably a week in real-world time (a generous estimate, considering the concept of _time_ and _reality_ likely got obliterated along with the rest of humanity when the world, you know, went bust), and anyway, who’s he kidding, his ass still kind of hurts _a lot_ , so.

So basically: this sucks. What sucks even more is that Isamu says it out loud, and for a flicker of a moment he half-expects Chiaki to be there, looking affronted, her elbow poised for the opportunity to jab him in the ribs with it while Naoki’s not looking. But neither of them are here – obviously. Of course. He hasn’t seen anyone alive besides demons and twitching clay dolls in ages. It doesn’t matter. Starvation does weird stuff to your brain, he’s heard, so he’ll chalk it up to that.

Isamu stops scratching at his backside and gets up, as quietly as possible, to inspect the weird drum-looking thing he’s pretty sure he’s seen before but can’t remember where, or when; memory’s been a fuzzy thing for a while now and he’s not sure if it’s from being rattled around like a peppershaker by Loki, or because he hasn’t been thinking of much of anything besides variations of the mantra (ha, ha) _I have to survive, I can’t die here_ – and he reminds himself that Takao-sensei is still nowhere to be seen, and that’s reason enough to continue looking.

That she _must_ still be alive; she was at the hospital along with the rest of them, weren’t she? Isamu’s not stupid, and he’s done his fair share of listening in – he knows now what she’d been there for, the apocalypse she was an instrument in – but some part of him wonders if she’s feeling as lost as he is. If maybe she figured out the old man was using her all along (he must have been) and regrets it now. If she’s, at least, found a safer place than _this_ to take shelter in. If he’ll see her again and she’ll give him the answers to the endless questions and uncertainties, unsaid or not, that’s been weighing on him since the start – since before he’d thought any of _this_ would ever happen.

He grits his teeth. The drum feels cool and alien against his fingertips.

Then.

“—help—”

“Yuko!” he says, stepping back, surprised at having caught her voice. There’s some commotion stirring outside that drowns out his startled yelp and forgoing of honorifics, and it takes a few seconds before he regains his bearings enough to pay attention to the message she’s relaying on loop. Suddenly, he thinks, the whole getting locked up again thing doesn’t feel that bad. Maybe he wouldn’t have heard her otherwise. He must’ve meant to.

“Help me,” Takao-sensei pleads, her voice unclear and faint through the transmission, and he listens in attention. “I’m—Obelisk—magatsuhi—the maiden…”

“—help me,” she finishes, and there's a soft edge to her voice he's never heard before, “Naoki.”

And the signal goes dead.


End file.
